Winter Fuel Payment

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

After such a huge election victory by a supposedly progressive party, it was disappointing to me and many of my constituents that, despite the financial situation that the Government inherited, one of their first acts was to strip vital support from many of the poorest pensioners in our society. I am sure that many of us across the House had hundreds of emails from concerned pensioners, worried about how they would afford their energy bills this winter. Stripping pensioners of this allowance was the wrong thing to do.

The Government said that the removal of winter fuel payments would allow money to be spent in other areas, but as with other attempts to raise money such as increasing employers’ national insurance contributions, any savings will be offset, as pointed out by the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), by cold, hungry and unwell pensioners adding to the strain on GPs and social services. It is morally and economically a poor decision.

One of my constituents, Patricia, wrote to me about how furious she was that the winter fuel allowance had been taken away. She is no longer eligible for winter fuel payments, but neither is she eligible for benefits or pension credit. She worked in the NHS for over 40 years, but her NHS pension is not large, and she has been a widow for over 10 years so she is managing on a small, single income. Because her husband died when she was 54, she was not entitled to a widow’s pension, either. She wrote to me saying:

“It is always the middle people who are squeezed, whose pips are made to squeak, the easy targets”.

I could give numerous other examples of pensioners in a similar position to Patricia who do not know what to do.

In January, I held a cost of living advice surgery in Midsomer Norton where I brought together organisations and charities such as Wessex Water and Mind to provide a one-stop shop for constituents to come to me with their concerns about bills and benefits. The majority of those who attended the surgery were pensioners anxious about the cost of their utility bills or confused about their eligibility for various payments. More than 2 million pensioners currently live in poverty—that is unacceptable. The pressure that they are feeling will only be heightened by yesterday’s welfare reform announcements. I have already received a deluge of emails from constituents worried about the likely impacts.

Loss of winter fuel payments, changes to personal independence payments and increases to national insurance for charities and social care providers all pile the pressure on the least well-off in our country while the Government kick tricky decisions like fixing social care into the long grass. The cost of living crisis is going nowhere, and removing winter fuel payments is just another example of a decision that penalises some of the most vulnerable.

Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who—as I know from working with him on other campaigns—is quite the social justice warrior, contrary to popular belief. I fully align myself with the comments he has made. I also welcome the new Minister to his position. We have high hopes for him in this place.

When the ombudsman finally confirmed last year that the Department for Work and Pensions was guilty of maladministration, that these woman had suffered injustice and that they were entitled to compensation, we thought that was it—case closed; the next step would be what a redress mechanism would look like. Of course, many felt that the ombudsman’s report had not gone far enough, but we had the firm expectancy that the previous Government, and later this one, would at the very least act on the ombudsman’s recommendations, as would be the usual course of action.

So when the Government finally issued their response, it was met with shock—shock that despite the clear findings of state-level injustice, these women were to be denied justice; shock that the ombudsman’s findings that too many people did not understand their own situations was ignored by the Government; and shock that while, on the one hand, maladministration was accepted, the recommendations of the ombudsman were rejected in full, without alternative proposals being set out or there being an opportunity to vote or debate the matter in Parliament, as the ombudsman intimated.

There were also fears, as colleagues have stated, that a precedent might now be set on observing an ombudsman’s proposals. Usually, when a state-level injustice is found, a Government of the time will act on an ombudsman’s proposals or outline their own alternative ones.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

The work the Government are doing to improve transparency and accountability contrasts with what happened under the previous Administration, but does the hon. Lady agree that if they ignore an independent ombudsman’s report, it just looks like more of the same to people in my constituency?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

It is incredibly worrying.

I do not want to test your patience, Dr Murrison, so I will draw my comments to a close by saying this to the Minister. He must be aware that the ombudsman made the rare choice to lay this report before Parliament because it was not reassured that the Department for Work and Pensions would act on its recommendations, and it was right to have that fear. The Minister must understand that although many of us in this place wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s apology to the impacted women and acknowledge the difficult financial landscape the Government find themselves in, state-level injustice is state-level injustice. It cannot be ignored, and an apology alone is not sufficient. A remedy must be forthcoming to address the clear and apparent injustice that these women have faced.